Baseball steroids chemist sentenced to 18 months in prison

Investigators said Paulo Berejuk was the key drug source for Anthony Bosch, who ran the now-closed Biogenesis of America clinic that provided steroids to baseball players and other athletes.

|
(AP Photo/Alan Diaz)
Anthony Bosch talks to reporters as he prepares to turn himself in at federal court in Miami, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015. Bosch, the former owner of the South Florida clinic that supplied performance-enhancing substances to Major League Baseball players and other athletes has been sentenced to four years in federal prison.

A chemist working out of his suburban South Florida garage has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for supplying banned performance-enhancing substances to a clinic whose customers included professional baseball players and other athletes.

A Miami federal judge imposed the sentence Wednesday on Paulo Berejuk, who pleaded guilty in December to conspiracy to distribute testosterone. Berejuk faces deportation to his native Brazil after prison.

Investigators said Berejuk was the key drug source for Anthony Bosch, who ran the now-closed Biogenesis of America clinic that provided steroids to baseball players and other athletes. One customer was New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez, who recently apologized to fans for his actions.

The doping scandal resulted in suspensions last year for 14 professional baseball players and criminal convictions for Bosch and others.

In 2013, Major League Baseball filed a lawsuit seeking unspecified damages from Coral Gables anti-aging clinic Biogenesis of America and its operator, Anthony Bosch. Several other Bosch associates are named in the lawsuit. A phone message left for a Bosch representative wasn't immediately returned.

MLB contends the clinic's operators solicited players to use banned substances knowing that violated their contracts. The lawsuit says baseball has suffered costs to investigate the claims, loss of revenue and injury to its reputation among fans.

Last November, New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez admitted to federal investigators he used steroids supplied by the owner of a now-closed South Florida clinic.

Attorney Frank Quintero Jr., who represents Lazaro "Laser" Collazo in his defense against charges of conspiracy to distribute performance-enhancing drugs, told The Associated Press that the New York Yankees third baseman confessed to steroids use, according to Drug Enforcement Administration documents provided by the government to defense lawyers.

The Miami Herald first reported Rodriguez's admission saying he met with DEA agents on Jan. 29 at the agency's South Florida field office. Given a grant of immunity from prosecution, Rodriguez told investigators he did use banned substances between late 2010 and October 2012 supplied by Anthony Bosch, who owned the Biogenesis of America clinic in Coral Gables.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Baseball steroids chemist sentenced to 18 months in prison
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/0225/Baseball-steroids-chemist-sentenced-to-18-months-in-prison
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe